As globalization continues to spread throughout the world economy, it is increasingly common to find projects where team members are widely distributed across continents. Videoconferencing has long been considered a critical technology to reduce high travel expenses for distributed work-forces. Nevertheless, even with high end teleconferencing solutions face-to-face meeting is usually still a better experience than remote meetings.
One of the factors that is known to be essential for face-to-face communication is eye contact. Eye contact can instill trust and foster an environment of collaboration and partnership. Lack of eye contact, on the other hand, may generate feelings of distrust and discomfort. Unfortunately, eye contact is usually not preserved in typical videoconferencing.